In the Garden: April 2016 - Apricot Tree Removed

When we had our backyard redone a number of years ago, we had a variety of fruit trees planted: lemon, lime, apple, peach, and apricot. We requested that all of them be the dwarf variety. However, the apricot tree became a fast-growing specimen getting quite tall and taller each year. We had it trimmed a few times. But ultimately, it's size meant that the vegetable beds were not getting enough sun light. So, after two years of poor output in the vegetable beds, we finally decided the apricot tree needed to go. The only thing we had to assuage our guilt was that over the holidays a neighbor advertised that she was looking for cuttings to propagate new fruit trees. She came by and took a number of cuttings from the then dormant tree. But the transformation in the backyard is incredible. Lots more sunshine in the backyard and hoping that this year's vegetable bed out put is better.

Another benefactor of the removed apricot tree is the apple tree which spent most of its life thus far living in the shadows of the apricot tree. But this spring, the apple tree has turned around. It has literally and figuratively blossomed. So far it has not produced too much fruit but I think this year will be different.

Spent some time last weekend working our compost into the vegetable beds. All of our kitchen and yard scraps go into the green bin which gets picked up separately. This gets turned into compost. Then, each Earth Day, every resident gets 3 bags of compost for free.

So, I will let the soil rest and incorporate the new compost. Sometime in May, I will head to the nursery to pick up this year's crop.